Lead Generation Through Webinars

Lead generation is an important part of your growth strategy, but how can you reach new leads when you’re not able to physically meet with them? Webinars are becoming increasingly popular across all industries, and they’re proving to be an important lead generation tool for accounting firms. Here are some best practices to get the most out of your next webinar.

Require Registration and Gather Data

Requiring registration for your webinar is a best practice from a security standpoint, but it also allows you to capture names and contact information for communications before and after the webinar. You can even capture leads through the recording if you require that users enter the same information as they would have if registering ahead of time. While being mindful not to make registration too cumbersome, think about what data you want to collect during registration and what data you can collect passively. For instance, you can use customized links to track which sources your registrations are coming from. You may also want to consider using Q&A and polling during the webinar as another way to gather valuable data.

Promote Your Webinar

Promote your webinar using traditional channels like email and social media. When possible, target your audience to match the webinar content. In addition to these channels, encourage everyone in your firm to help promote your webinar by “word-of-mouth” by forwarding links or emails with a personal note or sharing on social media. For one of our recent webinars, more than 60% of our overall registrations came from personal invitations and social media shares.

Expand Your Reach for Greater Lead Generation

Collaborating with others is a great way to expand the reach of your webinar beyond your current circle of influence. Co-presenting with industry organizations, chambers of commerce, or other professional services providers such as attorneys can help generate new leads that weren’t previously on your radar.

Follow Up

Make lead generation and follow up part of your plan from the beginning, and make sure that plan is followed before, during, and after the webinar occurs. In addition to automated messaging such as registration confirmations, reminders, and lead nurturing campaigns, consider how you will handle personal messaging to individuals. How will you address questions that come in before and during the webinar? Who will be responsible for following up with new leads and how will they report back? How can you use the data you collected to further personalize your messaging?